The Mumbai Indians (MI) neither started its title defence well nor did it end the league stage on a high. No wonder then that the defending champion bowed out of the 2018 Indian Premier League (IPL) with a disappointing loss to the bottom-placed Delhi Daredevils (DD).
Sportstar takes a look at some of the hits and misses in Mumbai Indians' topsy-turvy season:
Hits
Domestic duo shines
Suryakumar Yadav and Ishan Kishan fetched high price tag at the player auction, with MI going all out for the duo. Both the players justified the faith in them. While Yadav – who was promoted to open the innings mid-season – emerged as the Mumbai Indians' highest run-getter with a tally of 512 funs, Kishan, the wicketkeeper, scored 275 runs at a strike-rate of almost 150. Had it not been for the duo's performances, the Mumbai Indians would have found it difficult to keep its campaign alive, going into the last game.
Find of the season
Keeping its tradition of unleashing at least one relatively unknown player every season, Mumbai Indians handed leggie Mayank Markande, who had only featured in limited overs games for Punjab in the domestic arena, a debut in its season-opener. Moreover, the young leggie bamboozled the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni with his mix of leg-breaks and googlies. The youngster's wicket-taking ability faded in the latter half, but the fact that he continued to be consistent with his line and length augurs well for the spinner and his team.
READ: IPL 2018 playoffs: CSK holds the edge over SRH
Misses
No-hit and Bum-raw
It's a fact that Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah shared three of the Mumbai Indians' six Man of the Match awards. The more glaring fact is that both the Mumbai Indians stars were not as consistent as they have been over the years. Captain Sharma had his poorest IPL season in terms of batting returns. In fact, his tally of 286 runs means Sharma had his first sub-300 season in the 11 IPL editions so far.
Bumrah, on the other hand, elevated his performance in the latter stages of the tournament, even keeping the Mumbai Indians' campaign alive with glimpses of his trademark death bowling against Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) in MI's last home game. However, the pacer failed to get initial breakthroughs for a majority of the tournament and even failed to contain the onslaught from opposition batsmen in the slog overs.
Underwhelming overseas stars
Mitchell McClenaghan, the left-arm pacer who came in as a replacement for Pat Cummins, was exceptional. Evin Lewis, the Carribean opener, was impressive in patches. Barring the two, however, the rest of the overseas players' had a below-par season. Kieron Pollard played just one knock of note, that too after he lost his place in the side mid-way through the season. Mustafizur Rahman fizzled out early on in the tournament. Akila Dananjaya couldn't do much in his lone outing. Furthermore, going by the way Ben Cutting and Jean-Paul Duminy were (under)utilised, it appeared that everyone in the change room was confused about their role.
Inconsistent Pandyas
Had the siblings been on a song like the last season, Mumbai Indians may well have featured in the playoffs. However, the fact that both the Pandyas had a discrepant season, it played a huge role in MI falling short of the line. Hardik bettered his combined wicket-tally of all the previous seasons; in fact, he also held the Purple Cap for a while, but he was far from being consistent when it mattered the most, both with the ball and the bat. Elder brother Krunal, too, couldn't really relive the 2017's magic on a regular basis.
Comments
SHARE